Preserving the Second Amendment

Currently, in Oregon, chief petitioners in five counties - Deschutes, Grant, Lincoln, Linn and Yamhill - urgently need help gathering signatures to preserve the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. They actively encourage registered voters in those counties to sign or volunteer to circulate the petition, and all interested parties should participate. The Aug. 8 deadline to get initiatives on the ballot in the November election is quickly approaching.

There is a movement sweeping across the state of Oregon traveling from county to county. Average citizens are taking destiny into their own hands by using the initiative process.

It started in 2013 when the commissioners of Wallowa County enacted a Second Amendment Preservation Ordinance, followed by Wheeler County in 2015.

Later that year in Coos County, several individuals took it upon themselves to enact a SAPO via the initiative process. The following year the Curry County commissioners adopted the ordinance, and as recently as June of 2018, the Board of Commissioners in Douglas County voted to put the SAPO in the November election by submitting it to the ballot through the referral process.

After the SAPO’s success on the Coos County ballot, people from around the state wanted to find out how they could file an initiative to put a Second Amendment Preservation Ordinance on the ballot in their county.

Columbia County was the next to have a Chief Petitioner file an initiative and the first county to be certified for the 2018 November Ballot, which has since been followed by six other OR counties.

Of the 18 counties that had someone file an initiative this year as a chief petitioner, seven have made the ballot, five have the petition still in circulation, and six where denied the right to circulate the initiative petition on the grounds the measure was administrative and not legislative. The discrepancy between the ones the clerks certified for circulation and the ones they denied shows how much discretionary power there is in the position of county clerk.

To challenge the legal obstacles, several chief petitioners of these county measures have decided to officially form a Political Action Committee and raise money to cover the costs of hiring an attorney and promoting the campaigns.

The committee has a goal to turn every Oregon County into a Second Amendment Sanctuary. Anyone who would like to donate to the campaign should send a check or money order to The Committee to Preserve the Second Amendment, P.O. Box 973, Bandon, OR 97411. Please do not send cash and please provide the name of your employer and employer’s address or indicate if self-employed, unemployed, or retired. The Secretary of State requires this information for all political donations.

Kevin Starrett from the Oregon Firearms Federation and Michael Boldin, founder of the Tenth Amendment Center fully support and endorse this effort.

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